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A review by qu33nofbookz
Secondhand Spirits by Juliet Blackwell
1.0
How I feel reading this book. 
This is the first in a series but it reads like the 3rd or 4th with how much is referenced but not explained so it's confusing. The author assumes that the reader is brain dead with this story. I absolutely hate the main character! What a hypocritical, whiny, self-serving, woe is me bitch. The rest of the characters are too unbelievable and one dimensional. The story is full of little off shoots that are never resolved and the main mystery is convoluted. Full of contradictions and dialogue to either cringe to or roll your eyes so much they are in danger of falling out of their sockets. This story is annoying and pointless. I hate that my ocd makes me finish books like this.
Lily Ivory has finally stopped traveling the world and settled down in San Francisco and opened a secondhand...er...vintage clothing shop. She whines about being a witch, whines about her extra special powers (which are not evident since she can hardly do anything and are constantly failing, which she whines about too), she whines that she just wants to be normal, she whines about how she wants to be alone, then whines about not having friends, then whines about how any friend she makes she puts in danger, then whines about how she needs to fix everyone else's life, she whines about how witches are precieved as bad, she whines about how witches cause trouble (yet she has no problem sticking her nose into other peoples business and causing trouble or using her powers to self-serve herself and take advantage of others/cheat others) then whines about how witches shouldn'y abuse their powers...
While she does all this she becomes the object of affection (for no reason) to 2 men, one a human who could never understand her and the other a MALE witch who are evil. One gives her a fimiliar whom she assumes will spy on her for him but accepts it anyway when a familiar is supposed to be picked by the witch because it's one of the most powerful gifts and allies...yeah (all right in the first few chapters). Anyway, she goes one day to pick up some clothes from a woman who has saved everything for about 40+ years. While there a neighbor girl disappears and she hears the wail of La Llorona (here she is a demon). Later the woman is murdered and Lilly sets out to find the girl, solve the murder and banish La Llorona.
The mystery in this is slow and convoluted. The main character has too many loose threads in her history/backstory that should have been explained but weren't. The rest of the characters are all rather underdeveloped and almost all, with the exception of the villain and maybe one or two in passing exist only to help Lilly when needed and convenient. The two love interests are flat and there is no chemistry, they hardly interact and yet at the end she is making out with one of them. The cops in this town (all two of them) and their chief seem happy to just gossip about all the crime details and let her traipses around and do all the work and don't look at her at all even though she should be the number one suspect in the woman's murder. In the end everything is wrapped up nice and neat very quickly with no mess and it's business as usual as if nothing happened.
This is the first in a series but it reads like the 3rd or 4th with how much is referenced but not explained so it's confusing. The author assumes that the reader is brain dead with this story. I absolutely hate the main character! What a hypocritical, whiny, self-serving, woe is me bitch. The rest of the characters are too unbelievable and one dimensional. The story is full of little off shoots that are never resolved and the main mystery is convoluted. Full of contradictions and dialogue to either cringe to or roll your eyes so much they are in danger of falling out of their sockets. This story is annoying and pointless. I hate that my ocd makes me finish books like this.
Lily Ivory has finally stopped traveling the world and settled down in San Francisco and opened a secondhand...er...vintage clothing shop. She whines about being a witch, whines about her extra special powers (which are not evident since she can hardly do anything and are constantly failing, which she whines about too), she whines that she just wants to be normal, she whines about how she wants to be alone, then whines about not having friends, then whines about how any friend she makes she puts in danger, then whines about how she needs to fix everyone else's life, she whines about how witches are precieved as bad, she whines about how witches cause trouble (yet she has no problem sticking her nose into other peoples business and causing trouble or using her powers to self-serve herself and take advantage of others/cheat others) then whines about how witches shouldn'y abuse their powers...
While she does all this she becomes the object of affection (for no reason) to 2 men, one a human who could never understand her and the other a MALE witch who are evil. One gives her a fimiliar whom she assumes will spy on her for him but accepts it anyway when a familiar is supposed to be picked by the witch because it's one of the most powerful gifts and allies...yeah (all right in the first few chapters). Anyway, she goes one day to pick up some clothes from a woman who has saved everything for about 40+ years. While there a neighbor girl disappears and she hears the wail of La Llorona (here she is a demon). Later the woman is murdered and Lilly sets out to find the girl, solve the murder and banish La Llorona.
The mystery in this is slow and convoluted. The main character has too many loose threads in her history/backstory that should have been explained but weren't. The rest of the characters are all rather underdeveloped and almost all, with the exception of the villain and maybe one or two in passing exist only to help Lilly when needed and convenient. The two love interests are flat and there is no chemistry, they hardly interact and yet at the end she is making out with one of them. The cops in this town (all two of them) and their chief seem happy to just gossip about all the crime details and let her traipses around and do all the work and don't look at her at all even though she should be the number one suspect in the woman's murder. In the end everything is wrapped up nice and neat very quickly with no mess and it's business as usual as if nothing happened.